“The 4 hour target is the priority in the A&E and a labour political target. Medical care takes second place. Nurses are pressurized not to breach the 4 hour target. They are understaffed so it is not surprising records are changed to meet the government target. Also is it logical to pay a nursing agency over £80 per hour for one nurse who is not familiar with QMC A&E dept.
The nursing staff should be doubled or the 4 hour target should be cancelled”

“As a junior doctor following the progress of the NHS over the last 10 years, during my training, I can tell you that if it wasn't for the Labour governments interventions the NHS would be even more of a mess. The tragedy with human nature is that we have very short memories. Does anyone remember what the NHS was a decade ago? No. I doubt it.

As far as I remember when the Tories were in power, just prior to me starting medical school, doctors morale was terrible and less and less people wanted to enter the profession.

Come 2009 you are waiting less than half the time for operations, and significantly more doctors graduating every year. As doctors, we are mostly well to-do Tory-family background people who hate the Labour government's red-tape. But this redtape, the 4-hour waits, infection control (Superbugs werent created by Labour - they are a worldwide phenomenon)
hurdles through every step in the hospital is what makes them much safer and more pleasant places to be.

I dont see what the big fuss is about with these 4 hour waits, your not always going to meet them - thats the whole point, if every patient was easily seen well before 4 hours the targets would probably be 2 or 3! If it wasnt for the targets I could bet the waits would be a hell of a lot longer, simply because there is no end of work to do in a hospital, and some patients need significantly more input than others and I guess this is kind of sharing the time out between patients, unfortunately not always strictly according to clinical need.

Have any of you Nottinghamians seen the state of your community at QMC A&E on a Saturday night? But no, lets blame the Labour government, lets blame the NHS managers....”

“I don't work for the NHS, but I have some insight

That's just too simplistic to say that stuff, and pen-pushing is such a loaded term.

ALL the people I see there work very hard, and as I say, you don't want to train a doctor only for him / her to be running business functions, now do you?”

“anon you are doing a lot of sticking up for the way in which the nhs is run now, i saw a prog on tv about how the nhs money is spent, it goes back and forth to different pen pushing depts (each taking a nice little earner from the ever diminishing pot),by the time the front line staff get their hands on it theres hardly anything left”

“Bah Humbug

"Maybe we should look back to how the NHS used to run and run well.

Oust the Labour Party NOW"

Yeah, like I said, 2 year waits.

And I very much think that it was the Tories who started all this stuff with targets to tackle them.

Feeble attempt at partisan political point, Mr Humbug. Rubbish.”

“more coming out.
I blame this weak feeble Labour Government.
Maybe we should look back to how the NHS used to run and run well.
Oust the Labour Party NOW”

“Hospitals don't run themselves, they're massive places. You don't train someone for 10 years to become a doctor and then ask them to run the hospital; nope, you try and get them to the patients as quickly as possible”

“If the government supported these professionals instead of some guy in an office inventing numbers for them to reach, both the NHS and the education system would improve. The fact that healthcare professionals have to take time out from patient care to respond to the difference between 97% and 98% is rediculous.

I agree that pateint waiting times have improved, and this is great news. But provide more money, more staff, more support and it will impove.

The fact that this is such a scandal is laughable - don't forget the actual point of the NHS - it's to help traumatised, sick and vulnerable people. Let them get on with it.”

“It's too cynical to blame government for this, and too lazy to dismiss 'managers' as being the problem... getting waiting times down is just ONE way of improving patient care.

Of course there's plenty of other equally important aspects, but would you fancy waiting 2 years to get your hip replacement done? Or 8,9 hours in A&E? Thought not. But that's what you would have been landed with 10 years ago.”

“The main issue begins at the top with Government, or more specifically, one which is intent on creating targets and using them predominantly for PR purposes.

This then spawns a new department of so called "progress chasers" who absorb a significant chunk of money which could be better spent on frontline treatments.

My thoughts are, if this diverted money was spent on actual patient care, how much record manipulation would have needed to happen, and how many of the targets could they have hit.”